Odisha has recorded 659 incidents of forest fire between February 1 and February 8— the highest during the corresponding period in the past four years.
The number of forest fire has raised alarm bells for authorities in the State Forest and Environment Department as it surpassed 656 incidents recorded in the same period in 2021— considered one of the worst years on this account.
Since the State had last received rainfall during the last week of October, the condition had become favourable for forest fire.
According to the Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) fire alerts system based on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP), 659 incidents of fire had been reported in the State between February 1 and Feb 8, 2023— the highest in the country. Odisha is followed by 621 fires detected in Madhya Pradesh and 503 in Karnataka.
The FSI data said that during the first week of February, as many as 9 fire incidents were detected in the year 2020, 656 in 2021 and 121 in 2022.
Odisha’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) Debidutta Biswal said if the dry spell continued further in March and April, forests across the State were bound to record forest fire.
“It will be a challenge for the forest department to attain the forest fire which would considerably go up in March and April,” said Mr. Biswal. As of now, forest fires have been detected in Keonjhar, Balasore, Ganjam and Mayurbhanj districts.
Fire-prone zone
The Forest Survey of India had carried out a study based on spatial analysis of forest fire points detected in the 17 years between 2004 and 2021 to identify fire-prone forest areas in the country. The analysis says 10.66% area of the forest cover in India was under extremely to very extremely fire-prone zones. The central part of Odisha falls in the category of extremely and very extremely fire-prone zones.
As per the fire alerts system based on SNPP, India had recorded 695,134 forest fire incidents since January 1, 2020. During the same time, 84,840 fire incidents were detected in Odisha which constituted 12.20% of the total forest fires of the country.
